A Moment In History: The Afghanistan Election

More sound and fury, signifying nothing; nothing to my life, at least. Maybe my grandkids will celebrate our wonderful nation building when they read about another Afghan election held under the auspices of the ever-present NATO military. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan because a pro-communist government was being undermined by the CIA, which was supporting Afghan warlords with money and arms. The USA supported Osama bin Laden and his group - later to grow into Al Qa'ida - with money and arms. We essentially created Al Qa'ida. The Soviets lost. Time passes. We invade in our turn. Our rational, as described by General Petraeus: "When Afghanistan was a sanctuary for al-Qaida and other transnational extremists we saw what they did. That is a development that we have to prevent," he said. "That's why President Obama has identified this as a war of necessity, not a war of choice." In other words, we created a monster that we had to destroy. We let Al Qa'ida slip away into Waziristan, so now we couldn't destroy it, but would have to occupy a country to prevent its return. Again Petraeus: "There has to be a development of governance that is seen as worthy of support by the people. There will be very substantial local components, traditional tribal and social organising mechanisms that will then mesh at some point with national structures that come out to join them," he explained. "Those national structures have to earn the support of the people by being seen to improve the lot in life of the Afghan people." This doesn't sound like it's going to be over any time soon. Off hand, given the complexity and the poor record so far, I'd say it is impossible to accomplish in the time we have. I mean to say, we do not really have 50 years to devote to this. It is not going to work. It will be yet another disaster of our generations.